Blueberries By The Bay

Maine is one of the largest producer of blueberries in the world and consequently has a fondness for the small colorful fruit. And not simply for its taste. With recent studies showing that eating blueberries is good for your health, the rest of the world has begun to take notice of blueberries, and this means more business. But behind the world-wide trade of blueberries and the big companies like Wyman’s or Cherryfield Foods Inc., lie the small Maine communities who make it all possible.

I grew up in Cherryfield Maine, a five and half hour drive to Boston, an hour drive to New Brunswick Canada, a five minute drive to the Atlantic ocean. Ever heard of it? Few people have, though it is the “blueberry capitol of the world”. There, blueberries are a way of life. At age 12 every August began to take on a new meaning: three to four weeks of waking up before the sunrise and to spend a grueling day bent over on the blueberry barrens raking beneath a hot sun, treelines in the distance, the only source of shade.

Arriving on the barrens, the bushes are still covered with the night’s dew. I wear several layers of clothes to keep warm though all but shorts and a t-shirt will be left when the day is through. I grab my rake and a stack of boxes and move toward the first available row. After a few jabs with my rake, my hands and feet are soaked and my back aches from the days before. I can smell the sweet fermented scent of crushed blueberries underfoot. How am I going to manage another 10 to 12 hours of this?
The days are filled with hard work but something invaluable comes with this yearly harvest: co-workers. Maine’s blueberry harvest employs around 8,000 annually, many of whom come from out-of-state, bringing with them a brief period of cultural diversity in my usually quiet town. To judge how close the season is to beginning, I need merely observe the number of new faces at the local “corner store”. The majority of blueberry harvesters are Mexican or Native American, however people from all walks of life are present.

The relationships that develop on the barrens rarely last longer than the blueberry season, though some lead to one or two letters. As people travel from all-over to come rake they have stories from all over. A Mic-Mac Indian from New Brunswick was at one time the Golden Gloves Champion of the world (though he was not a very good raker). Another man I met had worked with my favorite actor a couple months before in Texas. Felix, a Mexican who spoke strong English, would tell me about his family back home and how they depended upon the blueberry harvest. He also taught me how to eat a Mango. Later in the year, perhaps on a winter day, I might receive a letter from a fellow raker now far from Maine, in a place I could only dream about at 12.

Now the cultural diversity is here to stay. The migrant influx has resulted in making my hometown one of Maine’s most culturally diverse, quite a feat for a downeast town of just over 1000 inhabitants. And it was the blueberries that brought the diversity. At the end of the sweaty day, drinking by the water truck, I learned that the world is a much larger place than the street I grew up on and the town whose limits might also have been mine. Every August the lesson is taught again.